Words are a contested battlefield. Propagandists long ago figured out if you control the vocabulary you could dominate any debate or issue, conflict or war. On almost any given day you can read or hear variants of the following: Our enemies live in strongholds and emerge from nests or caves to carry out brazen ambushes. They have no respect for human life and are led by hardliners, warlords and terrorist commanders. Their culture is tribal. We and our coalition partners live in homes in nice neighborhoods. To defend freedom and spread democracy our F-16s, helicopter gunships and drones carry out missions. We are led by statesmen who respect human life and international law. Such is the lexical quicksand and nowhere is it more treacherous than in the Middle East.

Robert Fisk, based in Beirut, is the Middle East correspondent for "The Independent." He is winner of the Amnesty International UK Press Award and the Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom. The “Financial Times” calls him “one of the outstanding reporters of his generation. As a war correspondent he is unrivalled.” He is the author of “Pity the Nation,” “The Great War for Civilization,” and “The Age of the Warrior.”